Viral Photo Of Mom Waiting to Vote Is A Governmental Failure
S E E D E D C O N T E N T
Viral Photo Of Mom Waiting to Vote Is A Governmental Failure
There’s a particularly American, pick-yourself-up-by-your-bootstraps tendency that views images of people waiting hours to vote as inspiring documents of their commitment to democracy, and not of a blatant act of voter suppression. It’s the same tendency that frames people walking miles to work because they can’t afford to fix their car or raising money for medical bills on GoFundMe as examples of “good news” and not the inherent brokenness of the health care system.
Because of this tendency, it’s heartening to see that a photo of a woman that captures all of the worst things about 2020, about the government, about COVID, and about how hard it is to vote going viral because it calls attention to those problems. Taken by freelance photographer Kathleen Flynn for Reuters, it shows Dana Clark, a Black woman, and her 18-month-old son Mason waiting in a long line to vote early outside of New Orleans City Hall.
“Once I saw the picture posted I thought, ‘This is everything, everything that is going on in America with Black people,’ ” Clark, the subject of the photo, told Buzzfeed . “It was beautiful, and it shows the compassion of a mother wanting a better life for her child, standing in line to vote, because this is the only option she has left.”
The long line is symptomatic of widespread voter suppression largely enabled by the Supreme Court’s gutting of the Voting Rights Act in a 2013 decision. One gutting statistic is that there are 21,000 fewer polling places this year, part of a coordinated effort to discourage voting, particularly in working-class and minority neighborhoods.
“The way COVID is affecting the African American community is astonishing and that’s concerning to me,” Clark said. “It’s very alarming.”
To protect herself and her son, Clark is standing inside a clear “safety pod,” a bubble-like enclosure that separates her from the outside world and is big enough to allower her to hold him. She originally purchased it to use when she returns to work as a fifth-grade teacher next week. She decided to wear it to the polls because without an enforced mask mandate and the right, encouraged by the president, railing against mask usage she couldn’t be confident that people would be wearing masks.
Voter suppression, racial injustice, and the COVID-19 pandemic: the three horsemen of the 2020 apocalypse, all captured in one vivid photograph.
Thankfully, all of this awfulness did not discourage Clark, who was once denied the chance to vote because her vital documents were destroyed by Hurricane Katrina, from exercising her right to the franchise.
“This is one of the crucial elections for my sons,” she said. “We’re so divided right now. We can do better. We should do better, and it starts with voting, which is why I always bring my kids to the polls .”
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There’s a particularly American, pick-yourself-up-by-your-bootstraps tendency that views images of people waiting hours to vote as inspiring documents of their commitment to democracy, and not of a blatant act of voter suppression. It’s the same tendency that frames people walking miles to work because they can’t afford to fix their car or raising money for medical bills on GoFundMe as examples of “good news” and not the inherent brokenness of the health care system.
Because of this tendency, it’s heartening to see that a photo of a woman that captures all of the worst things about 2020, about the government, about COVID, and about how hard it is to vote going viral because it calls attention to those problems. Taken by freelance photographer Kathleen Flynn for Reuters, it shows Dana Clark, a Black woman, and her 18-month-old son Mason waiting in a long line to vote early outside of New Orleans City Hall.
“Once I saw the picture posted I thought, ‘This is everything, everything that is going on in America with Black people,’ ” Clark, the subject of the photo, told Buzzfeed . “It was beautiful, and it shows the compassion of a mother wanting a better life for her child, standing in line to vote, because this is the only option she has left.”
The long line is symptomatic of widespread voter suppression largely enabled by the Supreme Court’s gutting of the Voting Rights Act in a 2013 decision. One gutting statistic is that there are 21,000 fewer polling places this year, part of a coordinated effort to discourage voting, particularly in working-class and minority neighborhoods.
The article is correct. waiting for hours to vote may prove the voter's fortitude and patriotism, but that is beside the point. No one should have to wait that long. The people need to uprise.
Sometimes the long lines are due to people not knowing what their ballot looks like. I, for one, use the resources available and peruse it long before going to the polls. Takes me, after getting the okay to go the machine, all of about a minute and a half as I know where I am going to put my "X".
"Sometimes the long lines are due to people not knowing what their ballot looks like."
How ridiculous!
So that's your story and you're sticking to it?
Not ridiculous. I have seen it. People well in front of me in line that are still at the machine making their decisions when I leave. Laugh all you want. I know what i have experienced.
I give the American voter more credit than that. Political forces seeking to crush our democracy are responsible.
Your personal experience means nothing.
C'mon. victim card? Ain't buying what you're selling.
Nor does your opinion on my personal experience but you be you.
Hundreds of people forced to wait in line for up to 11 hours because a voter is trying to decide on a ballot initiative? No one is buying that nonsense.
Republican efforts to suppress the vote by closing down voting locations is reality, whether you acknowledge it or not.
Texas is just one of several egregious examples: https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2020/mar/02/texas-polling-sites-closures-voting
Ain't buying what you're selling either.
We don't have near the polling places for early voting as we do on the normal election day either. It is based on past "load" in previous years. If people want to get it out of the way, they will do so. To whine about a line means they really care less about voting than they do the inconvenience. And I didn't say initiative. Candidates included. Or are you one of those who vote for POTUS and Congress people and just blow off the rest with whatever comes to mind or if they have an R or D or I in their block.
I'm telling you that if everyone takes 10-15 minutes at the machine instead of 5 or less, it's gonna cause a back up. Period. you may be prepared but there are those that are not.
No, are you? I'm an informed voter. I take a lot of time studying the ballot initiatives before I go to vote. Maybe you don't.
That was my point. I too take the time.............prior to heading out to vote. Don't twist what I said to fit your narrative please. Thanks in advance
I would want to say let's not confuse early voting sites with voting locations for a general election. In 2016 New Orleans has 120 voting locations where as in this early voting they had five sites set up. I take away from that is that they didn't expect to see this much turnout for early voting. Across the country the number of people participating in early voting is just off the charts above anything in the past. Standing in line for hours waiting to vote is tough, but it's hard to fault the city when nobody really could have forseen this type of turnout.
Yeah, right.
No confusion here.
It's voter suppression, plain and simple.
"Across the country the number of people participating in early voting is just off the charts above anything in the past."
Thanks to the 'presidents' voter suppression efforts.
WHEN EVERYONE VOTES, TRUMP/REPUBLICANS LOSE!
Snuffy has a point. In my town of approx 28,000 we have one early voting site. On election day they will probably increase that to 2
Just more leftist inspired melodrama No real problem here, as they still have almost two weeks to vote.
You are right, Tessylo.
This is a failure of the government, a democrat government. The picture was taken in New Orleans. New Orleans has a democratic mayor, LaToya Cantrell.
It's a failure of the democratic mayor to not ensure adequate voting places in the city.
That's silly. Long lines have been a feature of elections all over the country for years. They weren't invented in 2013 by the Supreme Court. They're invented by incompetent state and local election officials and a citizenry that puts up with it.
But let's look at the picture.
First:
This lady is in a line? Where? I see maybe 10 people clustered together around the corner from her on the other side of that fence, but no one near her, immediately in front or behind. And if she is in a line we can't see, we have no idea what kind of line she might be in. This picture lacks sufficient context to justify outrage.
I mean maybe this picture is posed after the fact or something. That certainly happens. But if your narrative is that black people are forced to wait in long lines to vote, you should actually show a line of black people waiting to vote.
Which is why I found this comment ironic:
Because the story comes with this photo:
That looks like a long line full of white people to me and they are clearly in line to vote. There is even a sign that says "VOTE." How does the narrative of oppressed people of color work into this photograph? Why is no one complaining about everything that is going on with the white people in this picture?
Whatever, both photos were posted with the article.